Starting Block’s building rises while creative hub toes the starting line

FROM THE CAP TIMES–It’s taken five years of fundraising, scrapped plans, and deliberation in city hall. But an entrepreneurship center in Madison is becoming a brick-and-mortar reality. Across the street from Festival Foods on East Washington Avenue, the steel frames of two new high-rise buildings have shot up to loom over the Capitol East neighborhood. One of them, an American Family Insurance project called “The Spark,” will be the home of StartingBlock, a nonprofit that promises to foster startup growth and entrepreneurial culture in Madison.

As the building goes up, the team behind StartingBlock is hammering out the specifics of what the new space is going to be when it holds its public opening projected for the fall of 2018. “Even once the building is built, we’re only at the starting line,” said Scott Resnick, the group’s entrepreneur-in residence. “There’s no playbook for how to build an organization like StartingBlock.” The general premise of the project, which has received significant city, state, and federal funding, is to offer real estate to startups of varying sizes in a location teeming with people, organizations and resources to help them out. Read the full article here.